The Story of Zenmatsu: The First Japanese on the Sandwich Islands
Unlike Otokichi in my book, Hirahara Zenmatsu and the rest of crew of the Inawaka-maru made it to Edo. They even enjoyed the New Year’s...
Book Review & Craft: The Question of Hu
Jonathan Spence’s The Question of Hu (Vintage, 1989) is an account of a French Jesuit missionary Foucquet who brought a devout Chinese...
Makah Chief Yelak’ub: From Cook to "Antagonizer"
By the time the Japanese sailor Otokichi landed on the shores of Cape Flattery in 1834, the Hudson's Bay Company had already established...
How Two Japanese Sailors First Arrived in England
The young Japanese boy named Otokichi landed in London, England in 1835, but an earlier account suggests that he may not have been the...
Book Review: The Golden Spruce
To write good creative nonfiction is to read even better creative nonfiction. THE GOLDEN SPRUCE (John Vaillant, Vintage Canada, 2006)...
